I own a '89 Mercury Grand Marquis w/ a 5.0 and 120K almost exactly.

Driving home today on a big country road, doing about 60 when i looked down and the ENGINE light was on. So I immediatly pull over into an addition and coast in with the car in nuetral and turn it off. After looking in the book, and soon realizing, that obviously, its not gonna tell me anything, i opened the hood.

It was hissing and there was some steam coming from what looked like behind the belts and such.

After a couple more minutes (calling dad and telling him where i was) i went out to the car and opened the coolant/anit freeze thing.. it was EMPTY as anything I have ever seen.

Dad arrived, went to get water and anti freeze, and we were pouring it in. I was blocking the wind, so i wasnt paying attnetion, and then i looked under, and the antifreeze that we had just poured it, (and were now following with water) was leaking right back out from underneat where a hose met some sort of mechanical thing (water pump?)

What did i do by driving the car with no coolant, obviously, it began to overheat, so did i lose a water pump? or is something more serious the culprit?

if it helps, the cars heater has been acting funny, as in taking EXTRA long to heat up the last week or so,, someone said something about a possible thermostat problem.

Please help, im 18 days away from getting the 'Stang out.

 

nobody knows anything about running out of coolant?

thermostat problems? water pump maybe? potential head gasket problem??

anything?

 

Your water pump must of been leaking for a while. Therefore thats why your heat was acting up. If you have a bad head gasket, the coolant would get into your oil. [:@] A bad t-stat. The car will overheat if stuck shut. Or will not heat properly if stuck open. Your car overheated because of no coolant which was because of a bad waterpump.

 

thats what we thought, but i wasnt really sure,, never had this happen to me,, fluids were fine when i checked them a little over two weeks ago..

i just think its strange that all of the sudden the pump would go
(the oil seemed fine, which i am very thankful for)

so that would explain the coolant leaking through as soon as we poured it in?

and also is it likely that i caused any damage to the car in the short time i drove, and the bit i coasted?

 

Im sure your fine. If it overheated really bad, then you could have more of a problem.